When objects, such as clothing supported on hangers hung from a rod, are stored in a storage area, such as a clothes closet or the like, small sized, low density, air-suspended particulate matter (i.e., dust) settles thereon. Although dust can be transported in the environmental air of a building laterally and even upwardly, and can pass with air around corners and through small spaces such as exist between edge portions of a closed clothes closet door and adjacent portions of an associated door frame, the greatest source of dust that settles on clothing in a clothes closet is downward settling. Apparently, the air in a closet region is sufficiently quiescent to permit dust suspended therein to settle slowly downwardly (largely by gravity) into contact with hanging clothing. Dust that settles on clothing is unsightly, and commonly is removable by costly clothing cleaning.
Various closet dust protective measures for hanging clothing are known including, for example, (a) draping a cloth sheet over rod-hung clothes, (b) positioning individual clothing items in a rod-hung plastic garment bag, (c) placing specially formed protective covers or sheaths over shoulder portions of rod-hung clothes, and the like.
However, such measures suffer from various disadvantages. Thus, protective measure (a) is inconvenient, relatively unsightly, and of limited effectiveness (owing to the porous nature of cloth). Protective measure (b) is cumbersome, time consuming and costly (particularly when a plurality of garment bags must be used). Protective measure (c) is inherently limited in area of potential effectiveness, and also is inconvenient, cumbersome and costly.
An improved clothes protector apparatus and associated methods of installation and use are needed for protecting hanging clothing and the like. The present invention meets this need.